Issue 514

Issue 514

The One-inch Uh-Oh!

My cousin and I were lifting a cabinet that I had built to modify what was once a porch into a kitchen. It was a pro bono job; the apartment was going to be used by a young doctor who would be working with the Minneapolis Society for the Blind, doing low vision research.

Because this was the culmination of a much-desired project, there were several bigwigs standing around as we worked to insert my construction into an opening of what had once held a porch window. As Bruce and I tried to slide the cabinet home … it quickly became apparent that something was slightly wrong. By exactly one inch. As is not an uncommon practice, with added accuracy the aim, I had measured the opening using the one-inch mark on my tape as the starting point, intending to subtract the extra inch. That last part did not happen. As my cousin pointed out the obvious and my face turned red, it was clear that rebuilding was in my future.

At least we had some bigwigs to hold the doors open for us as we carried the cabinet back to the shop.